At its best the top forty has always resembled a massive house party with nobody on the door. The extroverts are shaking the dancefloor, the oddballs are in the kitchen and all manner of surprising couplings are going on in the bedroom where the coats are piled high. The mingling of folks who would otherwise never meet is what makes it so interesting.
The nineties were that kind of party where almost anything could and usually did happen. Early on, it was all techno and dance rock before a splintering of scenes led to a mass of narrowly focused sub genres and an ever increasing split between chart pop and the rest. As a result, a cold, northern winter fell over British pop as it struggled for a new direction, particularly as most would be popsters found themselves incapable of surviving in an environment where ambition was an absolute necessity and marketing savvy more important than the music.
The lower reaches of the charts became awash with a tidal wave of chancers like The Farm, the Soup Dragons and Jesus Jones with their couple of good records and nowt else. Of course, no-one had anything of value to say and that state of affairs hasn’t really changed since, but boy, the 12 inch dance remixes sure were groovy!
And that’s how it would have stayed if Britpop hadn’t tumbled over Primrose Hill to lay karmic waste to pretty much everything. I think enough time has passed now for us all too finally admit what a load of old bollocks Britpop truly was. Yet hidden amongst all its revivalist, jingoistic nonsense there was still a treasure trove of great pop records, even if they were by a load of non entities with decidedly average names like Salad or Dubstar or Rialto.
It’s weird I know, and it must be because the nineties were such a glorious fucked up mess of never shoulda, woulda, coulda’s, but this volume of Secret Decades is one of my favourites. Admittedly there’s a lot of stuff here that never made it past the outer reaches of the top thirty. Then again, that’s where the good stuff always hides out. Whenever it’s musically up against any other decade, the nineties always come in last. They are the perennial losers. But in this particular race I’m happy for them to claim a victory, no matter how small it may be.
One
01 THE BELOVED / Your Love Takes Me Higher / March 1990
02 THE FARM / Stepping Stone / May 1990
03 CANDY FLIP / This Can Be Real / July 1990
04 SOUP DRAGONS / Mother Universe / October 1990
05 LONDONBEAT / A Better Love / November 1990
06 JESUS JONES / International Bright Young Thing / January 1991
07 BOY GEORGE / Bow Down Mister / February 1991
08 EMF / Children / April 1991
09 THE SHAMEN / Hyperreal / April 1991
10 SOHO / Hippychick / May 1991
11 VOICE OF THE BEEHIVE / Monsters And Angels / July 1991
12 MARTIKA / Love Thy Will Be Done / August 1991
13 THE KLF / Justified And Ancient / November 1991
14 JAMES / Sound / November 1991
15 DAISY CHAINSAW / Love Your Money / January 1992
16 BETTY BOO / Let Me Take You There / August 1992
17 A-HA / Dark Is The Night / May 1993
18 STEREO MC’S / Creation / May 1993
19 NICK HEYWARD / Kite / August 1993
20 ACE OF BASE / The Sign / February 1994
Two
01 LIGHTNING SEEDS / Change / January 1995
02 NED’S ATOMIC DUSTBIN / All I Ask Myself / March 1995
03 SALAD / Motorbike To Heaven / May 1995
04 STEPHEN DUFFY / London Girls / June 1995
05 DUBSTAR / Stars / July 1995
06 THE BLUETONES / Slight Return / January 1996
07 ECHOBELLY / Dark Therapy / February 1996
08 SHED SEVEN / Going For Gold / March 1996
09 SHAMPOO / Girl Power / July 1996
10 SPACE / Me And You Vs The World / August 1996
11 BABYBIRD / Goodnight / August 1996
12 THE CARDIGANS / Love Fool / September 1996
13 FUN LOVIN’ CRIMINALS / The Fun Lovin’ Criminal / November 1996
14 MONACO / What Do You Want From Me? / March 1997
15 EDWYN COLLINS / The Magic Piper Of Love / August 1997
16 RIALTO / Untouchable / January 1998
17 DANDY WARHOLS / Everyday Should Be A Holiday / February 1998
18 PLACEBO / You Don’t Care About Us / October 1998
19 CATATONIA / Dead From The Waist Down / April 1999
20 GAY DAD / Joy! / June 1999
